John Wardle Architects
John Wardle Architects is a design studio that fosters a collaborative environment to excite that reshape how we think of life and work. From small residential projects the studio has grown with a portfolio that includes major universities, high-end residential, commercial office and retail projects, strategic master planning and urban design. Our broad range of type and scale of project work, across five states, makes us an unusual practice. We are noted for the degree of detail resolution of our buildings regardless of their scale. Our design expertise has been recognised with industry awards including many awards from the Australian Institute of Architects.
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Projects:
Fairhaven Beach House
Fairhaven, Victoria, 2012
The Fairhaven Beach House is located on top of the ridgeline above the Great Ocean Road, with panoramic views over the southern ocean and surf beach below. The house incorporates a protected central courtyard, which creates an outdoor space sheltered from the harsh prevailing winds. The form of the house is stretched and exaggerated to wrap and frame the open centre. The spatial journey through the house from arrival has been choreographed to hold back the view for a more powerful revealing upon arrival at the main living space. The entry sequence is beneath a cantilevered study into a dramatic vertical space, which transforms along its journey to the horizontal living space, whereupon the panoramic ocean view is revealed and amplified.
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS)
Hobart, TAS, 2013
This institute brings together key scientific researchers from various leading institutions to collaborate on the Antarctic and Southern Oceans. Located on Hobart’s heritage listed waterfront, aligned to the water’s edge and following the rhythm and scale of traditional wharf buildings, our central idea is putting the science into the shed. Requiring carefully controlled laboratory environments as well as a series of offices and collaborative spaces, this building’s iconic shed-like form provides a simple contextually appropriate backdrop. Placed directly onto the raw concrete edge of the cove floor, with close proximity to the water and passerby, this building has a strong public role. Continuing the almost rudimentary language of the wharf vernacular, it has been sliced open on the western edge to reveal the inner workings of the program and research activity. As well as a series of three collaborative strands ‘ laboratories, meetings and central and more informal collaboration zone – this building has an exhibition space and publicly accessible theatre. A traditionally internal organisation opens up to its public domain.
Westfield Sydney City Commercial Tower
Sydney, NSW, 2012
This striking commercial tower provides a dynamic addition to a city skyline. Our international competition winning design is inspired by the proximity to the unusual yet iconic Sydney Observatory Tower with its very slender circular tensile structure and our desire to create flexible floor plates that maximise the views. The thirty-storey tower form is characterised by an elliptical floor plate that is both open and adaptable. To reinforce the tower’s ovular form, the building is sliced diagonally at its top, further revealing the elliptical geometry. It achieves a 6 Star GBCA Energy rating, and mediates between the adjacent Sydney Observatory Tower and our 100 Market Street office building refurbishment and facade treatments of the retail podium below. The central foyer space rises above the street level and the retail. With its cathedral like lift core and centrally placed services, this foyer space is then carefully planned with a range of social and working spaces – transitional zones – that include a cafe, touch down individual work spaces and informal meeting spaces. At upper levels, offices can be flexibly and democratically organised to expand the views out to the city beyond.
